Fred Mandelbaum: Five Questions With Breitling's Watch Archivist

Fred Mandelbaum, the Austria-based vintage watch collector-turned-Breitling consultant isn't your regular KOL with rare Breitling watches in his stash Rather, having been enlisted by Breitling CEO Georges Kern in 2017 to help rebuild the brand following the latter's appointment, Mandelbaum has played an instrumental role in Breitling's recent resurgence Acting as a human authenticity gauge of sorts for Breitling, Mandelbaum bring decades of experience "Buying, archiving and documenting" Breitling's past.

How did your interest in Breitling start?"I didn't start out to be a Breitling collector I was a chronograph collector And when you dig deeper into the field of chronographs, you notice that every important and relevant innovation throughout the course of history was always made by Breitling.

And since information was scarce, I started doing the research for myself, collecting catalogues, references, documenting the findings, and so on." How do you approach watch collecting?"There are two types of watch collectors One is always trying to impress with his friends with new or rare watches The other type, which I consider myself as, is interested in research and in-depth information; understanding the chronology of things, understanding the markets, building expertise to learn and share the information.

To me, this is what watch collecting really ought to be about." "On hindsight, do you think that Breitling didn't acquaint with its heritage well enough prior to Kern's revitalisation?"In my opinion, Breitling has always been a very profitable and successful company How does a brand make 'respecting the past' work, as opposed to being a marketing soundbite?"Walk around the watch fair, and you see some brands who suddenly decided that they have historic links with aviation but their watches don't reflect that Just look at what Breitling is doing - we are looking into our heritage and analysing it, so that we don't claim incorrect things or do things that are not aligned with our legacy.

To make it work, a brand needs to be true to its history, and not invent stories on a whim." . Source